FG Restates Commitment to CERPAC Scheme
Federal Government has restated its commitment to the Combined Expatriate Residence Permit and Aliens Card Project (CERPAC).
Minister of Internal Affairs, Dr. Iyorchia Ayu, made the disclosure in Abuja last week when he received the report of the committee that was set up to review the contractual agreement and the implementation of the CERPAC project.
The committee was inaugurated in March with a mandate to study the contract and identify any loophole, carry out inventory of equipment supplied and their values as well as determine the status of the CERPAC accounts with Afribank.
Other responsibilities of the committees include the determination of the number of forms printed and sold and those outstanding from inception of the project to date. The technical partners to the project are Continental Transfert Technique.
While submitting the report, the chairman of the Committee, Mr. Isa A. Matazu, the acting director of Planning, Research and Statistics in the ministry thanked the minister for appointing the members who served in the committee.
He noted that the recommendations made in the report would assist the ministry in renegotiating the terms of the agreement on the project for mutual benefits of the nation and the technical partner.
In the same vein, the minister of state for Internal Affairs, Alhaji Sama'ila Sambawa, has said the federal government is committed to making life easier for aliens resident in the country.
Sambawa made the disclosure recently while on an inspection tour of facilities for the CERPAC scheme handled by Contec-Global, a partnering foreign outfit.
" We cannot succeed in our desire to bringing investors to Nigeria except they are provided with all the services that would make their movement or life easier," he said.
Contec, a private international outfit had entered into an agreement with the ministry to employ high-tech equipment in the production of a single card which combines the functions of alien cards and residence permits
In his remarks, the Managing Director of the company, Mr Berry Benoy, said the company would deliver on their words, adding that the company was in good working relations with the immigration.
He, however, said that the company had the records of only 65,000 foreigners stored in its database system.
The agreement, which is 100 per cent financed by Contec, allows the foreign outfit to process, Issue and monitor alien cards and residence permit
To foreigners in the country with the assistance of he Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS).
Officers of the service are currently being trained by the company so as to enable them take over and manage the programme afterwards.
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